Lars Korff Lofthus (NO)TOTEMS3-26/3 2017

Galleri CC is pleased to announce ”TOTEMS”, an exhibition of a new series of works by artist Lars Korff Lofthus, on view for the first time at Galleri CC.

"Bears are usually hunky, chunky types reminiscent of railroad engineers and former football greats. They have larger chests and bellies than average, and notably muscular legs. Some Italian-American Bears, however, are leaner and smaller; it's attitude that makes a Bear."Excerpt from "Who's Who at the Zoo?", article by George Mazzei July 26, 1979, in the issue of The Advocate where the term “Bear” for a specific type of gay man first was described and coined.

Korff Lofthus’ new drawings, produced between 2015—2017, pair two distinct and dissimilar found materials: discarded wood and private photographs taken with cellphones in private environments. Raw in their respective contexts, the two disparate sources converge to form blurry, textured portraits of men at their most vulnerable, seductive, and self-interested. With wood culled from his surroundings in the Fjords of Western Norway, Lofthus uses oil pastels to reproduce cell phone portraits appropriated from sites like Instagram and Tumblr. In recent years, Lofthus’ work has investigated how urban popular culture can be expressed in rural environments. This interest is demonstrated in this new body of work through the combination of natural materials and digital images. The result is a dichotomy of desire and disposal; natural materials and unnatural poses. The artist’s own desires are a fundamental part of the work, indicated in part by the depiction of burly, seemingly masculine men. By demonstrating his own desire, the viewer is invited to participate in a very unique—and perhaps unfamiliar—form of looking. The resulting works featuring appropriated, and often clumsy, photographs also call into question the notion of authorship and ownership—questions at the core of digital discourse.

Lars Korff Lofthus (b. 1978, Bergen, Norway) lives and works in Bergen and Hardanger in Norway. His work can be characterized as an ongoing investigation of identity in relation to place. His rural background, urbanity and the shifting between these, function as a position to work from. Korff Lofthus is staging himself both as the rugged farmer and the queer rebel infiltrating the village mob, constantly questioning his position in environments where he is both alienated and at home.

Lars Korff Lofthus earned his MFA and BFA at the Bergen National Academy of Art (NO) and has also studied at the Royal Danish Art Academy (DK), Nordic Art School (FI), and at the University of Bergen (NO). Recent solo shows include Entrée, Bergen (NO), Small Projects, Tromsø (NO) and Dortmund Bodega, Oslo (NO). His work has been exhibited at Lautom Contemporary, Bergen Art Museum, KODE (NO), Transition Gallery (UK) and Atelierhof Kreuzberg (DE).